Be thankful for every heartbreak, for they were planned. They come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave. Their purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life.

And you do.

Have the courage to love without circumstances, to love without end, to love without any condition. Have the courage to love with all of your heart, and to love purely and truly without any blockades.

If you want love, be love.

It's true that you don't know what you have until it's gone.

We are so busy thinking that of love that we forget it works that way with life too.

At any moment, you could lose anything, anyone.

You could also gain anything, anyone.

So take a moment to see what's around you,

be thankful for it, and treasure it now that it's here.

Because you never know when it may leave.

And you never want to waste an opportunity to be thankful.

Before, my fear was being vulnerable.

The ability of another human being to possibly tear apart your insides at any moment was enough to keep me running. He, however, made my insides come alive, my smile become permanent, laughter more frequent. He took away my fear and gave me hope. But more importantly, for the first time in my life, instead of wanting to run,

he gave me every reason to stay.

No matter what, once in your life, someone will hurt you. That someone will take all that you are and rip it to pieces, and they won't even watch where those pieces land. But through the breakdown, you'll learn something about yourself. You'll learn that you're strong. And no matter how hard they destroy you, you can conquer anything, and anyone. But most importantly you'll

learn you've conquered what you've truly lost,

yourself.

Our prayers are always answered, never ignored or forgotten. Sometimes they just aren't exactly how we imagined them to be. God is more creative and abounding in love than we can even understand.

It's best to let him decide what the best way to answer is.

The hard truth is that chances are, your relationship isn't going to last through your teen years. Even if it seems like it will. We all want to believe in miraculous love, and yes, it exists, and you may find it when you're young, but chances are something will happen to separate you two. The love will remain, the hope will remain, but a situation will arise that overwhelms the ability to be together with unbreakable obstacles. Let go, that is where God steps in. If God wants you two to be together, one of you could go to the moon and back and you'd still end up on the same path as each other in due time.

Let go and let God, his plans for your life are more incredible than yours.

Sometimes you have to be apart from people you love, but that doesn't mean you love them any less. Sometimes it even makes you love them more.

I've found almost everything ever written about love to be true. Shakespeare said,

"Journeys end in lovers meeting."

What an extraordinary thought.

Personally, I have not experienced anything remotely close to that but I am more than willing to believe Shakespeare had. I suppose I think about love more than anymore really should. I am constantly amazed by its sheer power to alter and define our lives. It was Shakespeare who also said,

"Love is blind."

Now that is something I know to be true.

For some quite inexplicably, love fades; for others love is simply lost. But then of course, love can also be found, even if just for the night. And then, there's another kind of love: the cruelest kind. The one that almost kills its victims.

It's called unrequited love. Of that, I am an expert.

In life, no one has ever abused you more then you have abused yourself. And the limit of your self abuse should be exactly the limit or the abuse you'd tolerate from someone else.

Just sayin.

Sometimes, in order to find the right answer, you have to let go of what you do feel and remind yourself of what you deserve to feel.

Can I get an Amen up in here?

That's what my dear friend Kate would say.

When you love someone, you open yourself up to suffering.

That's the sad truth.

Maybe they'll break your heart, maybe you'll break their heart and never be able to look at yourself in the same way.

Those are the risks.

The thought of losing so much control over personal happiness is unberable.

That's the burden.

Like wings they have weight, we feel that weight on our backs, but they are a burden that lifts us.

Budrens which allows us to fly.